Join us for the first reading of a new play about Alice Paul. This reading is the third event in our Celebrate Women's History series.

Take What Is Yours
 co-written by Erica Fae and Jill A. Samuels

Inspired by the remarkable work of Alice Stokes Paul, "Take What Is Yours" is a two-person play that tells the riveting, and little-known story of how the women of the United States actually fought for and won the right to vote.  The script is composed entirely in the prescient words of Alice and the women of the National Woman’s Party, transcripts of congressional hearings and court trials, as well as interviews and news articles of the time; and yet the play is shockingly contemporary and relevant to political and social issues we grapple with today.  Set during her imprisonment and hunger strike, the play follows Alice's mind and thoughts as she replays, questions, and relives the events that brought her to that pivotal and peak moment in her life.  Alice Paul is simply one of the most original and prescient minds in American history, and yet despite her manifold accomplishments (she led the first nationwide campaign of civil disobedience, invented modern lobbying, was a victor of human rights, etc.), she's curiously absent from history books.  In a nation in which only 62% of the populace has ever turned out to vote, understanding the importance of participating in one's own democracy and the struggles and sacrifices that our foresisters have undergone to secure this right, is of crucial import; yet above all, our drive to create “Take What Is Yours” is because Alice's is simply a dramatic, moving and powerful story.

Support for the project has been provided by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Naropa University, IRT Theatre (NYC), New Georges (NYC), and New York Theatre Workshop.

Following the program, light refreshments will be served and we will honor women's history with a special reading of the inspiring words of women's advocates today.